New Perspectives And New Directions In Foreign Language Education

The five essays in this volume address broad trends and issues in foreign language education. "Bandwagons Revisited: A Perspective on Movements in Foreign Language Education" (Frank M. Grittner) suggests that the bandwagons flourish because of lack of standardization and centralized authority in American education. Characteristics and results of popular methods and movements are discussed. In "Language Instruction in the U.S.: Policy and Planning" (June K. Phillips), opposing views and philosophies affecting public language policy are discussed and problems in explicit and implicit language policy are examined. "Sketching the Crisis and Exploring Different Perspectives in Foreign Language Curriculum" (Dale L. Lange) looks at internal problems in foreign language education, including relationships with other fields, simplistic application of theory to practice, the role of metatheory, the cyclical nature of the field, internal professional debates, and stresses under which foreign language professionals operate. The student and his relationship to the foreign learning process is the subject of "From Student to Learner: Style, Process, and Strategy" (Vicki Galloway, Angela Labarca). Finally, "Reforming Foreign and Second Language Teacher Education" (Gilbert A. Jarvis, Sheryl V. Taylor) focuses on the need for improved teacher education in the face of current professional realities and new conceptualizations of the teacher's role. (MSE)

New Directions for Research in Foreign Language Education brings together contributions by reputed scholars that examine the challenges, opportunities, and benefits of teaching and learning foreign languages. With a particular focus on languages other than English, the book looks at the socio-political dimension of language learning and teaching and the need to re-theorize multilingualism for our age. The volume includes a range of perspectives, from language teaching as an act of reconciliation to language learning across the lifespan, from innovations in assessment and curriculum to critical appraisals of pedagogy and textbook materials. Each chapter presents a clear case study drawn from diverse contexts to illustrate the different concerns of the contributors. The book is a valuable resource for all students, teachers, teacher educators and researchers who share an interest in researching multilingualism and the different facets of teaching and learning foreign languages.

This book, comprising two parts, is concerned with both the science and the art of foreign language teaching, with a particular, but not exclusive, focus on Asia. Under the theme of “Theoretical foundation and research”, Part 1 of this book informs the readers about recent efforts in theoretical and empirical research which have had an impact on foreign language teaching or promise to yield results that will shape its future. These studies, not just from the domain of foreign language teaching but also its primary feeder disciplines of linguistics and second language acquisition, offer the necessary theoretical and conceptual foundation for both current and future research and practice. As its theme “Classroom practice and evaluation studies” suggests, Part 2 focuses on new and innovative developments in curricular and classroom practice, all built upon insights from research in the above-mentioned disciplines and poised to become standard practices. These projects include qualitative and quantitative evaluation studies which have yielded insightful data for the refinement and continued development of the projects and their underlying theoretical concepts.

This edited collection provides a state-of-the art overview of research on willingness to communicate (WTC) in a second and foreign language. In particular, it includes innovative studies seeking to demonstrate the ways in which WTC can be examined within the framework of complex dynamic systems, how the construct is related to self-assessment, reticence and extroversion, and what is signifies in the case of immigrants. Another group of papers is related to the role of technology in fostering WTC in different contexts. The volume also comprises papers that touch on methodological issues in the study of WTC such as experience case sampling, the network approach or the integration of the macro- and micro-perspective. The book will be of values to researchers interested in the study of WTC but will also provide inspiration for students, teachers and materials writers.

New Directions in Second Language Pragmatics brings together varying perspectives in second language (L2) pragmatics to show both historical developments in the field, while also looking towards the future, including theoretical, empirical, and implementation perspectives. This volume is divided in four sections: teaching and learning speech acts, assessing pragmatic competence, analyzing discourses in digital contexts, and current issues in L2 pragmatics. The chapters focus on various aspects related to the learning, teaching, and assessing of L2 pragmatics and cover a range of learning environments. The authors address current topics in L2 pragmatics such as: speech acts from a discursive perspective; pragmatics instruction in the foreign language classroom and during study abroad; assessment of pragmatic competence; research methods used to collect pragmatics data; pragmatics in computer-mediated contexts; the role of implicit and explicit knowledge; discourse markers as a resource for interaction; and the framework of translingual practice. Taken together, the chapters in this volume foreground innovations and new directions in the field of L2 pragmatics while, at the same time, ground their work in the existing literature. Consequently, this volume both highlights where the field of L2 pragmatics has been and offers cutting-edge insights into where it is going in the future.

This book aims to offer insights into cognitive, sociocultural and pedagogical aspects of foreign language learning and teaching. It focuses on different competences, such as communicative competence, intercultural competence and the autonomy of the language learner. A significant feature of this volume is that it bears the fruit of collaboration between researchers and practitioners on both sides of the Atlantic and, therefore, offers a variety of perspectives. The book is divided into four parts, focusing on the following four areas of research: sociocultural theory, communicative language teaching, intercultural competence and learner autonomy. The first chapter of each part covers theoretical issues by outlining the origins and development of a theory and explaining its core concepts. In the second chapter, theoretical, empirical and applied research is reviewed, and the implications for foreign language learning and teaching are discussed. The third chapter of each part is devoted to the application of the theories in focus. It presents either an example of a research project or an application of the theory in terms of developing materials and/or giving suggestions for good practice in the foreign language classroom.

Language teaching approaches, methods and procedures are constantly undergoing reassessment. New ideas keep emerging as the growing complexity of the means of communication and the opportunities created by technology put language skills to new uses. In addition, the political, social and economic impact of globalisation, the new demands of the labour market that result from it, the pursuit of competitiveness, the challenges of intercultural communication and the diversification of culture have opened new perspectives on the central role that foreign languages have come to play in the development of contemporary societies. This book provides an insight into the latest developments in the field and discusses the new trends in foreign language teaching in four major areas, namely methods and approaches, teacher training, innovation in the classroom, and evaluation and assessment.

This is a collection of essays dealing with ESL/EFL/FL teacher education by experienced ESL/EFL/FL teacher educators and student teachers of different cultural backgrounds, and from different countries. The essays cover topics that focus both on the teacher as learner and the learner as teacher. This book recognizes that the language classroom has a particular culture of its own while being part of a broader school culture. As a result, the multi-foci nature of the chapters serve to present the varied and diverse language education needs, programs, and approaches. Contents: The National Foreign Languages: Can we Get from Here to There?, Sophie Jeffries; FLES Teacher Preparation: Competencies, Content and Complexities, Gladys C. Lipton; Journaling: A Path to Reflective Teacher Development, Aleiline J. Moeller; Alternative Assessment in Foreign Second Language: What do we in Foreign Language Know?, Charles R. Hancock; Where are the African American Foreign Language Teachers?, Mark English; Foreign Language Teacher Education in a Professional Development School, Alan Garfinkel and Carol Sosa; Portfolio Design and the Decision Making Process and in Teacher Education, JoAnn Hammadou; Peer Evaluation in In-Service Teacher Education, Jeannette Morris; Professional Development for Japanese Teachers, Yoshiko Saito; Successful Listening Comprehension Strategies: Implications for Foreign Language Teaching and Teacher Training, Rhonda Chipman-Johnson; Emergent L2 Writing in the French Immersion Classroom: Implications for Teacher Education of Where are the Holes in Whole Language?, Stephen Carey and Rishma Dunlop; Multimedia and Foreign Language Teacher: A Humananistic Perspective, Josef Hellebrandt; Culture: How do Teachers Teach it?, Zena Moore.